head to head · open source
traefik vs proxy.py
traefik has 65,020 GitHub stars, 6,215 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. proxy.py has 3,551 stars, 623 forks, 89 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. traefik leads on adoption by 1,731% (65,020 vs 3,551 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; proxy.py is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, proxy.py 18%. traefik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| traefik | proxy.py | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 623 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick traefik if
- You weight community size — 65K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick proxy.py if
- You want the proxy.py feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and proxy.py fits your workflow better
About traefik
Traefik — pronounced traffic — is "The Cloud Native Application Proxy": an MIT licensed, Go based HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that watches your orchestrator or service registry and generates its own routes, aimed at teams running microservices on Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, Consul, Etcd, Rancher v2, or Amazon ECS.
read the full traefik overview →
About proxy.py
proxy.py is a lightweight, dependency free HTTP and HTTPS proxy server and pluggable networking framework written in Python, for developers and operators who want forward and reverse proxying, TLS interception or DNS over HTTPS without depending on a hosted service or third party packages.
read the full proxy.py overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or proxy.py more popular?
traefik has 65,020 GitHub stars and proxy.py has 3,551. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and proxy.py free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and proxy.py under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and proxy.py?
traefik is written in Go and proxy.py in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, traefik or proxy.py?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,020 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose proxy.py if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.